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Noname review – the consummate rapper-activist multitasker
Radical activism and personal struggle fuel Fatimah Warner’s riveting set showcasing her 2023 album, Sundial. And she’s frank and funny with it
Even before we hit the meat of Sundial, Noname is warming to her subjects, kicking off with Self(2018), a statement of intent whose central refrain – “Y’all thought a bitch couldn’t rap, huh?” – contrasts starkly with her rapid-fire verses, densely allusive and sexually frank. Sundial itself is perhaps Noname’s best work yet, with some reservations – principally the inclusion on the album of a guest verse by rapper Jay Electronica that seems to contain antisemitic tropes, and in which he allies himself with highly controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The times seem to call for someone like Warner, who feels like a younger sister to righteous figureheads such as Lauryn Hill or Erykah Badu, while simultaneously putting in the work on the ground and online – the consummate 21st- century rapper-activist multitasker.
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